1) can you wear a cape or hood?
2) Can you dual-wield weapons?
3) How many guilds are there that you can join, and what are they?
4) Can it be modded?
5) Can you buy pets or hire allies?
6) How does the whole ship system work, and what is it needed for?
7) Is it open ended?
EDIT: 8) Where can I find this for sale under 30 bucks? All I see online is $50-$100 that's insane for a 96 game...

1) Yes, both, with options to wear them open/closed and hood up/down.
2) Of a sort. You can only attack with one weapon at a time, but you can equip two weapons at the same time, swapping between them.
3) Mages, Fighters, and Thieves guilds, the Dark Brotherhood, 8 different churches (one for each divine, they differ in the services they offer higher-ranking members (eg, one lets you create magical weapons, another lets you buy potions, etc)), and 8 knightly orders (one for each church. They're all pretty much the same). I think that's it, but I might have forgotten one or two.
4) There are some mods available, but there's no construction set or similar tools.
5) You can buy a horse, but besides a horse sprite in front of you, a "clip-clop" sound, and increased movement speed, it doesn't do anything. No hireable allies.
6) You go to a bank, and buy one. From then on, you can select the "Ship" option from the transport menu, and you'll be teleported to your ship. The only things it can be used for are a place to rest and cutting down the amount of time it takes you to fast travel on the world map.
7) More so than any other Elder Scrolls game.
8) A lucky bid on eBay would be your best bet.

9) Is there Light, Medium, or Heavy Armor, or is it just "Armor"?

No armor skills at all, though there are leather, chain and plate armors(plate comes in different materals).

Some players have also claimed finding it in bargain bins. So you can also check there. I found Redguard in a bargain bin at a game rental store two years ago. 10$ ! You can maybe manage to get good deals on ebay when it happens. I bought Arena for 1$. No one placed bids on it because the manual and box were in french (but not the game). I'm french so I didn't care. Plus the seller lived two hours from my house by car. Talk about luck!
Keep looking, you'll eventually find it.

I really don't know of any places in town that would have bargain bins... really all we have is Gamestop, Game Xchange, and then the big places like Best Buy and Circuit City. Do they have bargain bins? Never really looked...


Okay, this is a class I made, will it do good for a Thief/Assassin type character?

Primary: Lockpicking, Stealth, Archery
Major: Backstabbing, Short Blade, Critical Strike
Minor: Pickpocket, Streetwise, Running, Climbing, Dodging, Jumping

That's pretty good - though maybe swap archery and short blade. I myself never found archery in Daggerfall that great...

Indeed, change archery and short blade, archery is kind of useless in dungeons.

Okay I think I might make a Spellswordish character with stealth skills instead, anyone mind givin me a build?

Try:
Primary: Longblade, Stealth, Thaumaturgy
Major: Critical Strike, Mysticism, Dodge
Minor: Archery, Shortblade, Jumping, Climbing, Back-stabbing, Restoration

This gives plenty of stealth skills, a variety of weapon options and the three magical skills that are most generally useful. Don't fret that Destruction is left as a miscellaneous skill, it is by far the easiest skill in the game to train.

Edit: I find Archery to be a very useful skill, especially once you can get your speed attribute up into the 80+ range.